A friend of mine sent a link to an interesting article about recent advances in grid scale battery storage. It all sounds like great news since the big drawback on using inherently variable renewable energy such as wind and solar has to do with the inability to store excess production for periods of lower production and brief fluctuations (which is typically only minutes away). The issue is that the grid has to supply exactly as much energy as needed, constantly. The amount of energy needed is called the “load”. The supply has to be varied to match the load because there is no way to control the load, it just happens as people do things. There is enough flexibility in letting the supply voltage vary with the load so that predictions about future needs (in terms of minutes or hours in the future) are sufficient to adjust the output of traditional power plants to keep things running. This is not the situation with variable sources such as wind or solar, these are not under our control. Therefore, the current situation is to level out the supply to match the load using peaker power plants that operate in a way that almost entirely wipes out any advantage of using wind, and most of the advantage of using solar. As odd as it seems, it takes so much extra natural gas to provide the peaking function as wind turbines make. The turbines are big and impressive, but they do very little to reduce the amount of fossil fuels used to power the loads attached to the grid.

This situation changes completely if there is sufficient storage to level out the production to match the loads over time. With sufficient storage in place the wind turbines don’t need fossil fuel peaker backup, and hence the use of hydrocarbon fuels can actually decrease. Maybe. The “maybe” part has to do with how the batteries are actually used. They can be used to reduce the number of peaker power plants, or they can be used to shift the time of production with the respect to the time of delivery. For example, wind produced at night when usage is low, and the cost per kw is low, can be time shifted to times of the day when loads are high, and price per kw is high. Using this approach, not much happens to the total amount fossil fuel used, but a LOT happens to the value of the energy being sold to achieve much higher profits for the energy industry. I’m not saying that they would do a thing like that, but it is certainly possible and makes the battery installations perhaps not so “green” as one might think at first.

I have a BIG problem with this approach to solving the energy storage requirement. Going into all of the concerns of this is a book length discussion. I can only touch on the issues in this blog, more study is required to fully understand the issues. The main cause of the problems that I am concerned about is that it is based upon two assumptions, (1) it is not possible to reduce the loads, and (2) large power production and long distance distribution of electricity is the only option available to us. Obviously, both of these assumptions are no longer true. They were basically valid at the time that the current electrical infrastructure was created, in the early 1930’s – but things have changed.

One of the most dramatic changes has been with regard to improved “efficiency” of almost all things powered by electricity. One example is the change in energy required for lighting. A $1.00 100 watt incandescent light can be changed to a $5.00 light that produces the same amount of light while using only 18 watts of electricity using $10.00 florescent lights, then we went to 10 watts with a $5.00 LED bulb, which is likely to soon go back to incandescent lights once again, but this time they will use less than 1 watt and cost less than $1.00. At that point we will have cut the energy for lighting to be only 1% of what it was, and at an installed price that is at or below the starting point. Another opportunity is the energy used to condition buildings, especially small buildings such as homes, small apartments and small businesses. It is currently possible to modify existing homes in California (and most of world) to use less than 1/4 of the energy that they currently do for heating and cooling, while making the building much more comfortable, and at a price that SAVES tens of thousands of dollars over not doing anything. When I first heard of this I was incredulous so I went into the general contractor/engineering business to see if it is true. It turns out that it is, and it is easily done with normal, off-the-shelf, traditional building practices and materials. It just takes a little big of care. For example, I found that I could easily fix an existing house that was in need of a new HVAC unit (because of a failure of the old unit) at a cost that is less than 1/2 the cost of fixing the old system, with a resulting energy use of less than 1/2 of the original – resulting in a much more comfortable building. That means that the new system cut energy use by 1/2 and resulted spending 1/2 as much as would have been the case without the improvements. That is more than “free” to the homeowner- it is making money for nothing. There are many, many examples of where this is possible. Another example was my changing my pool filter pump to a different type that matched the needs of my pool. This simple change, that cost $600 for the new pump replacing my old $600 but failed pump, reduced my $120 a month electricity bill (just to run the filter), to $20 a month. I now us 17% of the power with a savings of about $100 a month. The new pump was “free” because I was replacing the old one because it had failed. However, even if I was replacing a good pump that change paid for itself in 6 months and has been running for over five years, saving me around $6000 in power bills. It is hard to make a return on investment like that in the stock market.

Beyond these kinds of “local” efficiency improvements are the huge efficiency improvements available by eliminating long distance transmission of power from large power plants, whether they are traditional, solar, wind or any other generation. Losses from long distance transmission are in the neighborhood of 50%. This means that if power were to be made “locally” instead of at a distance, the amount of production required to supply the load is reduced by one half. That means we could do with only using 1/2 of the power that we are currently generating. The point is that local production matching local use is much more efficient, and we now have the means to do so with the new technologies of “roof top” solar and local battery storage. The price of solar panels has decreased from $6.00/watt when I purchased my system ten years ago to $0.50/watt (or less) today. Even at the high $6.00/watt price that I paid, my system was paid off in about eight years and now I will get an additional 20 or more years of free power. At today’s rates, my solar system would have been paid off in about 3 to 4 years, and would be a huge “income” source (through reduced energy costs) for all of my retirement years, saving over $100,000 should I be lucky enough to live into my 80’s – which I hope to do.

Coupling local generation with local storage, while being connected to the grid to “share” with other nearby grid loads that can’t be met without using the grid (for example, many industrial usages that require a lot of power on a small footprint), can result in massive reductions in the amount of energy needing to be “wheeled” by the power transmission system with remote large scale power generators. My calculations, based upon California PUC data, shows that changing to locally (on site) produced electricity from solar, coupled with on site storage capable of a few hours of storage, can reduce the State’s utility provided energy budget to the point where no large solar installations are needed, no wind turbines are needed and no fossil fuel power plants are needed. This includes a situation where most vehicles have switched to electricity. If we were to do the many “small things” that are readily available and affordable at the consumer side, we would find that we eliminated almost all of carbon producing sources of power, had done so at a significant savings to the consumer, without requiring subsidies or tax incentives to do so. We would have better operating equipment and buildings, almost zero carbon “foot print” and would have vastly reduced energy costs to the consumers.

If the question is, “are we there yet?” the answer is “yes, but we have to use what is available.” We can do it right now, without adding any extra taxes or any extra expenses, while creating an immediate increase in high paying jobs to do all of the small scale installations required. The utilities would still have a very critical role in maintaining the transmission lines to keep the grid working, and they would continue to operate existing clean energy production, such as the current hydroelectric and nuclear power plants (until they finally wear out). Mainly we just need to switch our point of view about energy production and use from being “utility centric” to “user centric”.

I have had a pretty frustrating second half of 2020 because not only have we had the covid problem, but I managed to get carpel tunnel injury to my right hand, so much so that I was basically unable to do anything with my hand – putting my building projects on hold. Not that I had any very important projects, but like to putter around and am attempting to make a studio space within our barn/shop for my wife to work. She needs, and deserves, a nice space with good light and temperature controls.

After several visits to me GP doctor I finally got an appointment with a hand specialist. His opinion was that I had waited too long before seeking treatment, resulting in severe permanent damage to the nerves in my hand. His opinion was that prompt treatment via a “small” operation could save the use of my hand, but most likely not the sense of touch. That “little” operation was extremely painful, and is taking a long time to heal. I have been unable to do anything that requires “force” for about three months – effectively putting all “puttering around the house” projects on hold. About a six weeks ago I noticed that the numbness in my fingers was slowly changing for the better. Starting with the palm of my hand, the “un-numb” parts started moving toward my finger tips at the rate of about 1/2 inch per week. It is now to the tip of my fingers, perhaps next week it will be numb free. Apparently I was one of the lucky ones and the feeling of my fingers has returned. Now I can concentrate on the studio project.

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This is really a pretty simple project consisting of a few studs, installing a door, and a few other minor tasks. It will be sheetrocked and include a storage ledge. Her new space will be the section to the right that is under a shed roof.

This small project has been in the works for several years because while it seems simple enough, there was a long list of things that needed doing first in order to get to this step. I think it is finally getting to the point where it will become real and she can finally have a place to do ceramics. Her big electric kiln will be just outside of a door. She obtained the kiln second hand about ten years ago, but so far it hasn’t been used. I set it up once, including wiring it and all that – but since there was no good place to do her work it just sat there right in the way in my shop space. I am not quite sure how this is going to work out since we just have the electric kiln, which is fine for bisque but she doesn’t high fire work that will require yet another kiln, or access to one somewhere else. (It takes two steps for high fire work. The first firing gets the clay “sort of hard” but it takes very high temperatures to get it to the melting point where the glaze and clay basically turn into glass.)

I am excited to see if my hand will actually hold up to the project. If not, perhaps it will be an Easter project.

I can no longer sit quietly while people are screaming in the streets of Sacramento about their “right” to keep their businesses open in violation of the State’s health and safety laws and orders. This is perhaps the most inane demonstration that I have heard over a year of some pretty big doozies. Of course there is no “right” to keep a business open in violation of heath and safety orders. There is no more “right” to do this than there is to shot children in the playground, or drive your car on a freeway without a license, or pour poison in drinking water supplies, pour poisons into the air, or … the list is infinite because nobody has a right to do something endangers the health, safety and lives of others. If the State has determined that operating your business endangers the public (and it has so determined), then they have the right (and obligation) to prevent you from doing so.

You also don’t have the “right” to totally unfettered free speech. You can’t yell “fire” in a crowded theater because people die when that happens, you can’t say things to incite a riot because people die when that happens. While the first amendment says is: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” That does not mean that there is unlimited freedom to say whatever you want, it is that congress shall not make any laws abridging the freedom of speech. There are many, many cases where the courts have agreed to the concept that there are limits on freedom of speech, pretty much along the same lines as I outlined in the first paragraph. Your freedom of speech ends where it can, or does, cause damage or injury to others. In my mind, stirring up a lot of support for the idea of massive violations of the State’s health and safety laws with regard to the covid pandemic fit into the category of speech that has the potential for resulting in massive illness and death.

The sun is just setting on Christmas eve of an amazing year. Not necessarily a good year, but certainly amazing in so many ways. I wonder, and fear, what is coming next year – but today I am feeling some hope that this year will mark a turning point in humanity, a turning point where we begin to understand that we are not invincible, the world does not have infinite resources and we all need to hold hands and work together. This year I think all of us have made projections and assessments about the near future, only to find that we knew very little and the near future just comes – we can wish it not to be so, wish it would go away, wish what we want – but it still comes. Better to do what we can to help, do what we can to stay flexible, and do what we can to understand that we are all one family, and the earth is one living organism (sometimes referred to as Gaia). I am not so silly as to think that the world is literally only one organism, but it certainly is connected and has interactions that are so intertwined that it might as well be. It is all far more complex, and interdependent than we will ever be able to know. My opinion is we need to do what we can to maintain a gentle footprint, and try to not overdo any of the things that we do – moderation is definitely the order of the day.

So, I have hope that this coming year will be better in many important ways. Hopefully the pandemic will get tamped down so we can all see our friends and family again without fear and worry that we are putting each other at risk. Hopefully the government will do a slightly better job of helping the people that depend upon it in so many ways. Hopefully we will be a bit better at helping those that need help, or at least not harming those that are vulnerable. Maybe not so much offering help as to not smacking their fingers every time they start to get a handle on getting themselves into a better place.

Ho ho ho – may Christmas be loving, fun, fulfilling and safe. My biggest wish is that those of you who chose to gather with loved ones and friends don’t end up wishing you had made a different choice. May you all get what you need, and avoid what you don’t want. My suggestion is that if you are going to expose yourself and your loved ones to potentially great risks, do you very best to enjoy your time together. At least make it worthwhile.

With my love for the world, Merry Christmas

I have been enjoying a book by Edward O. Wilson, “Consilience the unity of knowledge.” In this book, Dr. Wilson explores some really interesting ideas about how we think, and how that might be a reflection of how we are put together biologically as the result of evolutionary pressures. One of the topics of interest to me is a discussion that perhaps art is in alignment with our biology as evidenced by the presence of certain archetypes and techniques in art that seem to have been common across cultures for tens of thousands of years. There are certain things about “art” that “feel” compelling and connect us to emotional stirrings.

As I was contemplating that I started to wonder, based upon not a lot more than idle musings, if perhaps we automatically build mental models of the world around us that as similar to three dimensional wire models that are the basis of cad drawing packages on drafting computers. When I try to sketch something, perhaps a building or a table, I automatically do so by drawing lines representing the edges of things. I did this for perhaps fifty years before it finally dawned on me that there are no lines in the real world. Somehow I thought I was “tracing” actual lines located along the edges of things. Obviously there are just changes in color, shading, texture and things like that – but there are no lines. However, even with that rudimentary (and rather obvious) insight, it still feels compelling to me that I am somehow drawing lines where there are lines. Maybe, but I might be wrong here, there ARE lines, but they are embedded in the way my brain simplifies, stores and manipulates our perception of the world. Maybe we somehow map the edges as lines, that can then be shifted, manipulated, rotated and simplified in our “mind’s eye.”

I surprised myself a few years ago while sitting under the shade of a tree sketching the great pyramid chicen itza. I was sitting on the ground level with the base of the pyramid, trying my best to accurately represent what I was seeing. I wasn’t trying to be “artsy” by drawing an impossible representation, I was paying attention to angles, perspective, shadows, and all that in an attempt to draw what I was seeing. When I finished my drawing I was kind of pleased with the effort, it looked very much like what I as seeing – but … oops, it was drawn from a position several hundred feet in the air, far above my head.

“Sometimes a concept is baffling not because it is profound but because it is wrong.” I rather like that as a reminder that perhaps I am not too dumb, maybe what is confusing me is confusing because I am NOT too dumb.

I had been fighting this tendency for several years by tightening up my belt sufficiently to squeeze my belly enough to prevent this potentially embarrassing event. The problem with that is that after a few hours it becomes pretty painful. The fact that I was now hidden from the public opened up the opportunity to experiment with suspenders. I figured that suspenders would do just what they are called, suspend my pants to keep them from falling off. This resulted in a rather extensive online search for the “right” pair of braces (suspenders).The first pair I got were too short (I am 6′ 5″ tall so require LONG suspenders) resulting in them pulling down too hard on my shoulders. In addition to that, the catch that clamps onto my pants was not strong enough and when I bent over the back catches would release, sending them through the air and over my head, with the additional outcome that my suspenderless pants would fall right off, ending up bunched around my feet. Not a fine outcome.

While worrying this situation I happened to be in the parking lot of the local grocery store getting my weekly “curbside” delivery when I noticed a man wearing pants with a belt and suspenders that held up the belt with a hooks rather than with clamps. I ordered a pair of those. They were sort of alright, but they tended to bother me where they hooked onto the belt, they tended to disconnect too easily, and they required a pretty tight belt. Not the option I was hoping for. On top of that, they were also a bit too short.

My next attempt was with clamps again, but also a much longer pair of suspenders. When I got them I discovered that they didn’t attach at the front and back but instead attached at the sides of my pants. They felt what I image it feels like to wear shoulder holsters on both sides. That is an interesting configuration since it leaves the front and back clear. Unfortunately, they were good as long as I wasn’t doing anything but walking and sitting. Trying to do “work” involving bending, lifting and things like that just didn’t feel right and tended to become unhooked.

So that put me back at the store once again, this time getting “regular” clip-on suspenders that are long enough for me. Not only are they long enough but the clips are REALLY aggressive. The clips are big, very strong, and have a big pin that punctures my pants. As long as the clip stays closed my pants will not fall off. I am wearing them right now. This was a great solution. I went for a month or so without a belt just wearing my new bracers. That was pretty liberating. I looked a bit like I was wearing clown pants – but was finally comfortable. Until I realized that if I tightened then enough to keep my pants from drooping they pulled my pants up so much that I ran out of “comfort room” and the bottom of my pants legs were now “high waters”.

The solution to this is wearing a loose fitting belt that keeps my pants from going up, and a loose fitting pair of suspenders keeping them from falling off. It then dawned on me that the slightly funny term for “redundancy” being the use of a “belt and suspenders” is not really redundancy at all. The belt and suspenders might appear to be performing the same function (keeping my pants from falling off), in actuality they are performing very different, non-redundant functions. One keeps things up, the other keeps them down.

As a safety engineer, this shift in focus brings much more meaning than just a funny saying. When reviewing equipment designs for redundancy, it is important to remember that what at first glance might seem redundant might not be that way at all, but instead might be performing very different and important functions that would result in potentially catastrophic, but different, failures of either one of the supposedly redundant elements. An interesting example comes to mind with the FAA’s use of the term on commercial aircraft. They require safety related elements to be redundant, but if the pilot has control should a component fail, then the pilot is identified as the “redundant” element. Perhaps this is true, but that “if the pilot has control” should be considered very carefully to make sure it holds true in all situations.

The university had an actual (albeit very small) observatory, with domed buildings and all that. I really enjoyed that job,especially spending time on the mountain with students learning a little bit about the stars, constellations and ancient myths. One young lady from southern California exclaimed that she was really excited to use a telescope because she had always wanted to see a star and she thought they were only visible through a telescope! (She had never been anyplace where you could just look up and see the stars in the sky.)

Being an introductory class, it was really just a group of amateurs doing live observations with amateur sized instruments, we did almost no work with cameras or other instruments. I soon realized that once you have observed a few dozen objects with a small telescope you were kind of out of new things to see. The highlights consist of the moon, the sun (through an appropriate filter), the planets and most of the Messier list of nebula. The Messier list consists of “fuzzy” objects that Charles Messier cataloged so that he won’t keep getting distracted by them. He used a 100mm telescope, which is close in size to the 117mm one I picked out – so I hope that I can easily find most of these objects over the course of a year or so. Now and then a comet or an eclipse comes along, but other than that you are pretty much out of interesting things to see without moving on to more sophisticated techniques such as photography or using various types of instruments.

Because I had the opportunity to use the university’s telescopes for several years, I didn’t have much interest in going to all of the trouble, and expense, of having my own. However, having grandchildren around rekindled the feeling of awe at seeing some of the more spectacular sights.

I decided to get a small, inexpensive, Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope along with a computerized mount to assist in finding objects quickly while being distracted by people eager to see the “next thing” on the list. I ended up selecting a simple 117mm SkyWatcher “Mak” telescope mounted on a Celestron “All View” mount. Unfortunately, when I went to join the two I discovered that while it all fit together, it ended up with the telescope being “up-side-down” (which means it points in the wrong direction on the mount). I hadn’t accounted for this problem, but the result is that the spotting scope ends up on the bottom of the telescope tube where it is almost impossible to access. I decided that the solution was going to be drilling and tapping holes on the top side so I could mount the spotting scope on top where it is more easily accessible. But then “things” got in the way and I set that project aside for awhile, then covid-19 came along, therefore I lost ready access to my grandsons, and … and .. The short story is that I still haven’t fixed the problem

Because of the “excitement” about Jupiter and Saturn being in conjunction on the solstice this year, and the situation where Saturn’s rings are tilted so we can see them more easily, I decided to try again. I decided to try just putting the telescope on the mount so that the spotting scope is on top. This results in having to install it on the outboard side of the mount (see photo), meaning that the azimuth controls run reverse from what they normally do. I am wondering if the computer will even notice that it is backwards. My guess is that after I set it up it will just point to where it is aimed and that will be the end of the problem. Last night was going to be the test of my theory, but it was cloudy. The storm as passed and perhaps it will be clear this evening. If so, I am going hunting for Saturn in the early evening before it sets shortly after nightfall. I am excited to finally get a chance to look through the eyepiece at what I consider one of the best “amateur” objects of all.

I want to apologize right at the beginning for yet another covid/vaccine posting. I know we are all getting tired of talking about it, but since this has come up again with some of my friends I think another shot at describing what is happening with the vaccines is in order.

There is a LOT of hope being put on the vaccines putting the pandemic behind us. I share in that hope, but realize it is likely to take much longer than people want to consider. As I have discussed previously, the vaccines where designed and tested to determine if they are effective in preventing illness (symptoms) given an exposure to the virus. They did not design, or test, it for effectiveness at preventing infection or spread (transmission). Designing and testing to ensure effectiveness against infection and spreading is a MUCH more difficult and time consuming task, on the order of additional years of effort. So what they have come up with is something that has been shown to be “safe” (whatever that means in this case) and “effective” (preventing symptoms in infected people). That is really great news for those who have a high probability of exposure such as medical personnel and first responders (police, firemen, EMT). Vaccinating enough of them (about 10M people) will provide the kind of statistical evidence needed to determine whether or not it is effective in stopping the spread (transmission) of the virus. As I mentioned in a previous post, there is substantial evidence that it will prevent transmission, but there are still many unknowns that could get in the way.

For the time being, they are planning on starting by vaccinating something in the neighborhood of 20M people by the end of January. That sounds like a LOT (and it is) but it is also only about 6% of the population of the USA. Assuming it works to stop symptoms, that means that there are still about 300M people who haven’t yet been infected, but who still can be. Given the speed with which covid-19 spreads without adequate protection, that can easily reach another 100M – 200M people by the time vaccinations are widespread, resulting in 5M to 10M additional deaths and untold numbers of persons with extremely serious and long lasting aftereffects. We are FAR from the end of the tunnel., in fact we have not yet begun the real brutish part of the pandemic.

My concern is that all the news reports these days are acting like “happy days” are here again and the pandemic has been put on the run. If people get the idea that this means they can let down their defenses (which they still haven’t put up to a level that is required), it is very likely that the pandemic will really explode, overwhelming the health care systems and resulting in the deaths of tens of millions of people. In order for this to work we need people to double (and triple) down in their efforts at isolation, masking and hand sanitizing. If they can hold out for another year, there will be time to finish the “experiment” to see if the vaccine(s) prevent transmission, and time for the vast number of people to have been vaccinated. Then it will be “happy days” again, but not until then. Premature letting down of our defenses WILL result in terrible things.

So my recommendation is to stay in “protection” mode until after being given the “all clear” based upon monitoring and testing. Take the vaccine if you feel it is safe enough, but don’t think that will prevent you from catching the virus, or spreading it to your loved ones. Watch what is happening, but don’t get overly optimistic until such time as more research and evidence shows that we have gotten past the problem. This might end up not working nearly as well as it is hoped, but at least it is a major step along the way. I think the bottom line is something like, “Hang in there folks, it will eventually get better if you stay protected long enough to get past it.”

We have finally gotten to the place of implementing perhaps the largest experiment upon humanity of all time – vaccinating billions of people with an unknown and largely untested vaccine that was created using a brand new “state-of-art” approach. I call it an “experiment” because that is exactly what it is, a test to check and see if a theory is correct. The vaccines in question where created with the express intent of preventing symptoms developing from an infection. That is what has been tested, and that is what is meant by “effectiveness”. It means you can be exposed and not develop life threatening symptoms. That is a good goal for individuals, not doesn’t do much for humanity as a whole. Humanity is concerned about preventing infection (not just having symptoms), and it is even more concerned about preventing transmission. There is a largely unspoken theory in the science community that it will not only prevent symptoms, but will also prevent transmission. However, that is the untested theory. There hasn’t yet been sufficient time or resources to adequately test that theory in humans. Some tests have been performed indicating that it prevents transmission in other types of animals (such as monkeys), which lends support to the theory, but it is still unknown if it will be effective in humans. However, we are embarking upon a grand experiment that will test the theory that it is safe, prevents symptoms and prevents transmission. I hope all of these turn out to be correct.

A really interesting part of this story is how we got to this point. A year ago, in December of 2019, the pandemic was known and discussed in the news, in newspapers and among the scientists that keep track of such things. However, it was mostly in China which is so far, far away from our comfortable homes in the USA. At that point in time they (scientists and heath care professionals) knew almost everything about covid-19 that we do now. They knew the infection rates, knew the mortality, knew how it was spread and other things. What they didn’t know yet because there wasn’t time to know about it was that it also causes severe, permanent damage to a wide variety of body parts – you generally don’t “just get over it” like in the case of “normal” flu.

It took about 3 months (until the first of March) to convince regulators in the USA and other countries that the science was correct and this thing was going to become a really, really big deal. However, an interesting thing happened (and continues to happen) in the general population. Many, perhaps most, citizens took the position that “science” is a field that looks backwards to document what has happened, rather than a approach that looks backward to gather information to predict the future (looks at what has been in order to formulate a theory so that the theory can be tested in the hopes that it can then be used to predict future outcomes). What people did instead was look backward and say things like, “There have only been 20 deaths in the USA, obviously it isn’t dangerous.” That is still the gist of what is being discussed when people say, “We did all of these terrible and expensive things to prevent the spread of the disease and we still have about as many cases as … (some place where it hasn’t gotten to yet).” It is as if the fact that since all of those things to prevent the spread worked means that they weren’t necessary because not that much happened. By the way, this is the exact same approach being taken by many people concerning global warming – “it hasn’t been all that bad in the past so it won’t be a problem in the future.”

All of those “super spreader” events are happening because people are looking back as history where there is a relatively small and tolerable infection rate, using that “data” to bolster their theory that it isn’t dangerous and the whole thing is a conspiracy by the government to make a few people very rich and to gain control over our personal freedoms. They are doing science too – creating a theory, and then doing experiments to test it out. These are extremely dangerous, uncontrolled, experiments for themselves and humanity, but experiments nevertheless.

Now it is becoming a little bit clearer that perhaps the scientists had more accurate theories about how it spreads and how dangerous it is and everyone is in a panic wanting “science” to solve the problem. Originally science provided information sufficient to solve the problem quickly, safely, and inexpensively. All we had to do was follow their recommendations to quarantine, wear masks, wash hands, test regularly and wait for 4 to 6 weeks – and it would have been a thing of the past. That approach would still work, but now instead of doing that in isolated pockets it would have to be done everywhere because it has spread to everywhere. It still would work, but the “anti-science”, “anti-vaccinate”, “freedom loving” group won’t comply with those recommendations, therefore they are forcing governments to do exactly what they fear the governments will do – get tough and do what they can to get as many people vaccinated with an unproven vaccine as they can.

Those people that are refusing to wear masks, refusing to follow recommendations, refusing to take simple precautions are in fact the ones that are causing their own self-fulling prophesy. It could be quick, easy, safe, relatively inexpensive – but for the uproar from those that seem to demand another approach that has resulted in millions of deaths, unknown number of permanently disabled people that have “recovered”, the collapse of global economies and the world wide use of an unproven, new vaccine. Good going folks – you have really changed the world (for the worst) and killed hundreds of thousands of people in the process!

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